It’s times like this that I really hate myself. I hate Konami because of how they treated Kojima, but my love for Zone of the Enders outweighs my hatred of Konami. As of right now, I own both an original PS2 copy of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner and the HD collection for PS3 that contains both the first and second games. That collection was intended to be a way to gauge fan interest in a third installment after so many years. Below, you can see a model of Jehuty that was intended to be used in ZoE3:

Because the aforementioned HD collection sold somewhat poorly(Due in no small part to reviews which outed the bungled nature of the collection, or at least, the half-assed remaster of the second game as well as framerate hiccups,), Zone of the Enders 3, which appeared to be a prequel in the same vein as Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, was cancelled. Kojima vowed to continue gauging interest in the series while he worked on Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Sadly, due to his falling out with Konami, ZoE3 and other Kojima led titles fates were left in limbo(Well, Silent Hills is pretty dead.). In the case of Zone of the Enders however, it appears that Konami hasn’t lost complete faith in the property.

I mentioned before that I own the original second game and the HD collection, and now, with great shame, I fully intend to buy the PS4/PC remaster of the second game that will release next year(If it comes stateside which I’m sure it will.). I mean, if it were a remake that would make more sense, but it isn’t. What they have done to it, is upgrade the textures even more(Supposedly they’re 4K(4096x4096) textures or maybe that was a 4K screen resolution typo.), increased the maximum resolution to 4K, and added freaking VR support to it. That last part caught my attention. You actually get to sit in Jehuty’s cockpit(virtually), look around, and pilot it and fight, in VR. That’s insane, especially since we’re talking about a remaster of a PS2 game here. They added freaking VR support to a PlayStation 2 game. I’m sorry, but I’m selling my soul, both for this game and a VR headset of any kind.

However, the release of this remaster also resurrects ancient questions: Does this mean that Konami is willing to make(Or possibly already is developing) another installment in the Zone of the Enders series? While it’s certainly a perfect fit for VR, this remaster kind of blindsided a lot of people, myself included, because Konami seemingly wanted nothing more to do with it after the failure of the previous collection and of course it’s relation to Kojima. All I’m gonna say is, if they’re going to make a new entry, be it a prequel, sequel, reboot, or spin-off, they better damn well do it right, because without Kojima at the helm, I’m expecting a damn pachinko machine.

Oh, and here’s the trailer for the PS4 version:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go play the PS3 remaster of 2nd Runner and beat it in about 2 hours.